strait-lace

[streyt-leys]

verb (used with object)

strait-laced, strait-lacing 

1. to bind, confine, or restrain with or as if with laces.

Word History and Origins

Origin of strait-lace¹

First recorded in 1630–40; back formation from strait-laced

Example Sentences

Even in his gladness the good minister, Thomas Baldwin, of the Second Baptist Church, 309 / 263 at Boston, North End, returning from Newport, N.H., where he had happily harmonized a discordant church, could not escape the strait-lace of a C minor for his thankful hymn— From whence doth this union arise, That hatred is conquered by love.

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